Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transplant. Mar 18, 2024; 14(1): 88734
Published online Mar 18, 2024. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v14.i1.88734
Primary liver transplantation vs transplant after Kasai portoenterostomy in children with biliary atresia: A retrospective Brazilian single-center cohort
Melina Utz Melere, Valberto Sanha, Marco Farina, Carolina Soares da Silva, Luiza Nader, Cristine Trein, Angelica Maria Lucchese, Cristina Ferreira, Antonio Nocchi Kalil, Flavia Heinz Feier
Melina Utz Melere, Valberto Sanha, Marco Farina, Carolina Soares da Silva, Luiza Nader, Cristine Trein, Cristina Ferreira, Department of Hepatology and Liver Transplantation, Santa Casa de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre 90050170, Brazil
Angelica Maria Lucchese, Flavia Heinz Feier, Department of Hepato-biliary-pancreatic Surgery and Liver Transplantation, Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre 90020-090, Brazil
Antonio Nocchi Kalil, Department of Surgical Oncology, Santa Rita Hospital/Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre 90050-170, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Author contributions: Sanha V, Melere M, and Feier FH designed the research study; Sanha V, Melere M, Farina M, and Feier FH wrote the manuscript; Nader L, Trein C, and Soares C collected and evaluated the data and wrote the manuscript; Ferreira C, Kalil NA, and Lucchese A wrote the manuscript and critically evaluated the final version; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Hospital Santa Casa de Porto Alegre Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: All patients signed a general informed consent agreeing to the treatment and use of their anonymized clinical data. According to national and institutional regulations, special written consent is not needed for every particular study where anonymized clinical data are used.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at flavia.feier@gmail.com.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Flavia Heinz Feier, PhD, Professor, Department of Hepato-biliary-pancreatic Surgery and Liver Transplantation, Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre, Rua Prof Annes Dias, Porto Alegre 90020-090, Brazil. flavia.feier@gmail.com
Received: October 17, 2023
Peer-review started: October 17, 2023
First decision: November 2, 2023
Revised: November 14, 2023
Accepted: December 18, 2023
Article in press: December 18, 2023
Published online: March 18, 2024
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Biliary atresia (BA) is the most common indication for pediatric liver transplantation, although portoenterostomy is usually performed first. However, due to the high failure rate of portoenterostomy, liver transplantation has been advocated as the primary procedure for patients with BA. It is still unclear if a previous portoenterostomy has a negative impact on liver transplantation outcomes.

Research motivation

Is there a negative impact of a prior portoenterostomy on liver transplantation outcomes?

Research objectives

To analyze the post-transplant complications and survival in children with BA with or without a previous portoenterostomy.

Research methods

This was a retrospective cohort study of 42 pediatric patients with BA who underwent primary liver transplantation from 2013 to 2023 at a single tertiary center in Brazil. Patients with BA were divided into two groups: Those undergoing primary liver transplantation without portoenterostomy and those undergoing liver transplantation with prior portoenterostomy.

Research results

In our study, prior portoenterostomy did not significantly affect the outcomes of liver transplantation.

Research conclusion

There are no survival differences in patients transplanted with or without a prior portoenterostomy. There is a trend for more portal vein complications in the group of patients transplanted without a portoenterostomy.

Research perspectives

Larger studies, also multicenter studies would be important to better address this issue.